When Ma Pingshan set out, the dew on the grass had yet to dry. There was a collapsed thatch shed by the road. …
When Ma Pingshan set out, the dew on the grass had yet to dry.
There was a collapsed thatch shed by the road. He glanced at it, his pace unbroken. Three steps later, he doubled back anyway, pulling an iron cudgel and hemp rope from his bundle.
Perhaps he remembered his father mending the window of the east chamber. Though the wailing of children never ceased, in his memory the sun shone at an angle, and his father's back was broad and warm.
Once the pillar was upright, an old man bowed to him. Hearing he was bound for Dragonbend Academy, the man prattled on about how noble its disciples were. "Truly noble!"
He clutched his bundle tight and turned away in silence. He was no Dragonbend disciple. He had brought these tools for one thing: to kill Crane!
First, the rope to strangle him senseless; then, the cudgel to beat him dead. Compared to the murder of his father, this was mercy.
Now that both tools were left behind, he would use his fists instead. Even better!
Halfway there, the noon sun blazed overhead.
Sweat trickled from his temples into his mouth. Salty, like the tears of those children.
"Stay back," his father always said. "You're not like them. They have no kin. Once I find their parents, they'll cry no more."
His father was a master at finding people and never took long to reunite them. For every child sent away, he was rewarded with a sweet. "Reunion," his father would say, "tastes just like this." Despite the constant backdrop of weeping, his childhood had been truly sweet. How could Crane dare call such a man a villain?
It was Crane who had turned him into one of those children.
Crane had robbed him of father and childhood, leaving behind only a few meager things: a few Mohist scrolls, a set of Inner Ways of martial art, a pair of foster parents, endless nights of waking in cold sweat... and a heart consumed by revenge.
Why was the bridge ahead broken? Dust fell from the splintered mortise, hissing in the air.
Opening his bundle, he drew out the manual of mechanisms left by that man. Page three: the art of bridge-mending.
The bridge was soon restored. He gave it a test step. Sturdy.
But he left the manual where it lay. He would give no one cause to say he owed a debt of gratitude to a villain.
Mist rolled up from the mountain stream. Night had fallen deep.
Ma Pingshan's breath grew heavy, and not from exhaustion.
A boulder had pinned a woodcutter; the man was unconscious. Without immediate aid, he was a dead man.
A cursed day.
Crouching, he unfurled his bundle. The last of his belongings: a set of hidden sleeve-arrows. Levers for stones, splints for bones. Skills he had learned. He dismantled the arrow casing, splitting it in two to serve as splints.
As he secured the splints, the calluses on the woodcutter's palms caught his eye, sparking a memory long ignored.
His father had calluses like these, yet he was a teacher. That was why their home was always filled with those poor children. But why would a teacher have calluses from gripping a blade? No... it cannot be... Those children had come and gone only because they were homeless... His father was no kidnapper, no human trafficker!
The whispers of old neighbors roared in his mind, nearly drowning out the howling mountain wind.
But whether those children ever truly stopped crying after they left... that, he truly did not know.
As the woodcutter began to stir, Ma Pingshan stood.
At this moment, he had nothing left to his name.
The mist thinned.
The Dragonbend Academy stood just ahead.
He had walked this road of vengeance a thousand times in his heart over these ten years.
Ma Pingshan cast one last look at the path behind. Winding and shrouded in mist, the mountain trail resembled a scar that sought to heal, only to rip open once more.
A line from a book surfaced in his mind: "The black and white of this world are discerned not by sight, but by the heart."
He turned away, treading only forward.